A data center room consists of an enclosed area where many computer system components such as servers, databases, and power supplies are located. Design of a data center room often requires both access to and from the computer system components, and incorporation of one or more ways to control the temperature within the data center room. Elevated air temperatures within the data center room may adversely affect a computer system's reliability, and may result in shut downs. FIG. 1 illustrates a typical data center room 100.
Computer system components 102 are often physically mounted in racks 104 in the data center room 100. Multiple rows of racks 104 may be arranged in the data center room 100, so long as the layout allows for access, typically through an aisle, to both a front 106 and a rear 108 of each rack 104. An aisle in front of the rack is typically referred to as a “cold aisle” 110, because in addition to providing access to the computer system components 102, the cold aisle 110 is the area where cooling air 112 is dispersed in order to cool the computer system components 102. An aisle located at the rear 108 of the rack 104 is typically referred to as a “hot aisle” 114. This provides access to the back of the computer system components 102. Further, the hot air 116 exhausted from the computer system components 102, which are now cooled, exits the back 108 of the rack 104 into the hot aisle 114 and rises.
The hot air 116 from the data center room 100 is drawn and directed into a computer room air conditioning unit (“CRAC”) 118. The example of FIG. 1 illustrates two CRAC units 118. The CRAC 118 cools the air and then directs the cooled air 112 into a cooling air passageway 120, generally comprising an area under the floor 122 of the data center room 100 and above a subfloor 124. The cooling air 112 is dispersed from the cooling air passageway 120 to the racks 104 by passing through vents 126 in the floor 122. These vents 126 are located throughout the data center room 100, including the cold aisles 110. Once the cooling air is dispersed, it is free to circulate in the area of the racks 104.
One problem with current data center designs is that the cooling air 112 is drawn in the front 106 of the rack 104 and needs to exit the rear 108 of the rack 104. However, some computer system components 102 have an exhaust 203 on the side of the equipment, not in the rear. This then exhausts the hot air into the adjacent computer system components 102 and not into the hot aisle 114. In this instance, the cooling air 112 may never reach the computer system components 102 it was intended to cool. Thus, the computer system components 102 may draw heated air 116 into their own cooling systems, thereby increasing the danger of overheating, leading to reduced reliability, or a shutdown of the computer system components 102. That is, heated air 116 exhausted by or radiated from one computer system 102 in the rack 104 is re-circulated back into the same or other computer system components 102 in the rack.
Hence, a need exists for a device or method that allows a side exhaust of hot air from a computer system component without overheating adjacent computer system components.